For UK Residents Only

So sometimes life is just too ironic to get upset about. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at it. Sometimes you've got to force a smile, see the humor, and just freaking laugh.

Last night, Scott Brock helped me move my furniture out of my house and into my storage space. Afterwards we went to Barnes & Noble to get some boxes. When we got back to my house, Scott remembered something from his car and brought in a magazine he'd bought me for my trip. It was a British magazine called Word; he thought it would be something fun for me to read on the plane.

Well in this British magazine was a scratch card, one of those "You Could Win £2 Million! (in prizes...)". So we read the directions. It said you had to find two or more matching symbols to win. Scratch all four boxes. So I scratched Box One. Four tiny symbols but none of them matched. I scratched Box Two. Four tiny symbols- All of them matched!!! "Scott, does this mean I win?" We didn't know, maybe you had to match symbols in two different boxes, not just one. So I scratched the other two boxes, and got matching symbols out of two different boxes. "Scott, I think I won." I read the bottom of the card: "Four matching symbols=Grand Prize Winner." There are three grand prizes, you win one of them. It was between £2500 cash, £20,000, a holiday for 2 in the Canaries, or a 10 Day Fully Inclusive Cruise.

There was another card.

We scratched it. It said you had to get a match of 2, 3 or 5 in a row to win. I scratched the first line, got two. Scratched the second line, got two. Scratched the last line, got five. "I honestly think we won again." Five matching symbols wins either a cruise, £25,000, £750 cash, or a 4 day European holiday.

There was another box on each card that said only winners can scratch this. Well, we decided that if we didn't really win and there was some kind of trick, it didn't matter if we scratched the forbidden box. And if we did win, we had the right to scratch the box. So I scratched the first one. It said "CONGRATULATIONS! You have won! To claim call this number..." The second card said, "CONGRATULATIONS! You are a TOP PRIZE winner! To claim call this number..."

"Scott, I think it's illegal to lie. I really think we won." Well, granted, I didn't really think we'd won. There had to be a loophole. We read the rules on the backs of the cards. "Yeah, yeah... yeah... All this stuff applies..."

Then, directly in the middle of the rules: "Open to UK residents only." That was the kicker. "Ah, so they ship their winning cards to other countries. That's brilliant."

So like I said. Life is funny sometimes. You just have to deal with it. And laugh. I kinda won. In a non-elligible way. That's ok. I was doing fine without all that money anyway. Though a trip to the Canaries would have been unbelievable...



"The world embarrasses me." -Voltaire